The rantings of an average, ordinary guy.

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Monthly Archives: July 2010

Rod Nilsestuen was more than just the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) Secretary; he was a leader that I looked up to. I had the honor of working at DATCP for five years, all while he was the Secretary. Although I left to work for another state agency over a year ago, I still hold a special place in my heart for Rod.

Rod’s vision for agriculture in Wisconsin was to preserve that which we take for granted nowadays: the importance of us working the land to help it work for us. How often do we think about the farmers that grow the ingredients and produce that we buy at the supermarket, the milk that comes in a bottle, or the meat that we find in the butcher shop? But it’s not just the importance of agriculture, but making it matter to Wisconsin. Today, Wisconsin is America’s Dairyland because we produce the most artisan cheeses in the country (perhaps even the world). We had the first mandatory livestock premises registration law to protect animal health. It recently passed working lands initiatives to help preserve agricultural acreage. And we have some of the strongest consumer protection laws. All of these occurred under Rod’s leadership as the Secretary of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. I was happy to be a part of it.

If you’ve been reading about my new road bike, you know that I pretty much went all out. My new Trek 6-series Madone is one sweet bike, especially since I set it up through Trek’s Project One Web site. With the Madone built (including handlebars wrapped), I was ready to take it on its maiden ride. I don’t often ride as far as I would like, but my goal this year is to accomplish a number of 50-mile rides and maybe push a metric century (62 miles) near the end of the season. At any rate, I had a long Memorial Day weekend coming up, so I figured that I could get some base miles in, including a 50-mile ride.

As you’ll note, the title of this post states first rides (plural). This implies that I actually took the new bike out for more than one ride – in fact, I took it out for two long rides this past weekend. It also involves two friends named Josh: one used to work with me at a previous day job and the other worked with me at my part time job.

I wear a Road ID Wrist ID Sport on every ride. After watching these testimonials from members of Team Road ID, I knew I had to share it with others. It’s fairly inexpensive, but the information to rescue workers is priceless to your life.